Final parts of state report card are released

LORAIN -- The final two elements to the state report cards were released yesterday by the Ohio Department of Education and Lorain City Schools students in grades three to eight are struggling in reading and math.

The two elements that have been withheld during a state investigation are the "value added" measure and an "overall performance" index that give districts the opportunity to see where improvements are being made from previous school years.

Partial report cards were released in August, but a state-wide investigation was done to because of suspicions some districts falsified data.

Lorain City Schools are in academic emergency, meeting only one of 26 state indicators. To meet state indicators for grades third to eighth, at least 75 percent of students tested must score proficient or higher on tests.

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The "value added" measure recognizes students may be making significant improvement in the academic performance even though they did not meet the standard for student achievement.

The performance index measure the achievement of each full-time student to come up with a score between 0 and 120. Lorain schools number was 78.7, compared to 80 in the 2010-2011 school year and 78.1 in the 2009-2010 school year.

"I could sit here and talk you about this for hours," Superintendent Tom Tucker said. "It's very complicated, but this is all in response to the changes we will be making."

Lorain saw value added growth in reading scores for grades three to eight, but in math the same grades were ranked below expected growth, except at the seventh grade level.

Tucker knows rejuvenating the district's academic performance will take some time, but finding new strategies to repair the districts poor ratings will pay off in the long run. He is convinced, changes need to happen not only in the classroom, but in the community.

"A well-developed community vision is needed to change the direction of Lorain City Schools," Tucker said. "What we need to have is strategic planning process, but we have to do it together, that's the key."

Tucker said he wasn't surprised with the low rankings, as the district's academic ranking has dwindled within the last couple years.

His first line of fixes increased school days voluntarily by an hour to allow tutoring and educational programs to tailor learning to individual students rather than entire classrooms.

The tutoring focuses on math and reading in the grades that are tested by the Ohio Achievement Assessments and the Ohio Graduation Test -- third grade through eighth grade and 10th grade, respectively.

The response has been overwhelming, as 53 percent of students in grades three to eight are participating in the tutoring, Tucker said.

This week, Tucker has been in Columbus at the Ohio School Leadership Institute, a conference for superintendents to improve leadership skills for struggling districts.

The value added for Elyria City Schools showed above expected growth in reading and math in grades fourth and fifth. The district was below expected growth in both subjects for grade six, but met both growth requirements in seventh and eighth grades.

The performance index at Elyria showed a consistent increase. Results for 2009-10 showed a 88.8 performance index, 91.4 in 2010-11 and 93.2 in 2011-12.

To find updated state report cards for school districts visit bit.ly/12cpNZF.